Malaysian missing plane search sees Captain Allison Norris steering HMAS Success through world’s most hostile seas
MEET the woman playing a crucial role in the next phase of the desperate hunt for MH370.
Captain Allison Norris is commanding officer of the navy’s second largest ship, HMAS Success, which will arrive in the Malaysia Airlines search area Saturday morning.
Speaking to News Corp Australia via satellite phone from about 1200km southwest of Perth on Thursday morning, Captain Norris said her ship and its 220-strong crew were ready for any challenge.
As the Success steamed toward the search area at “best speed’’, Captain Norris was expecting the weather and search conditions to deteriorate over the weekend, with a sea state of between three and four — or 2.5m waves and moderate winds.
“That does hamper our ability to search and recover,” she said.
She said if the ship found any debris from the missing aircraft her crew would attempt to retrieve it using the ship’s inflatable boats and possibly its crane.
“Additional lookouts will be posted and we will brief the crew on what to look for,” she said.
Captain Norris has been in the navy since 1987 as a seaman officer and warfare specialist.
She was Commanding Officer of the frigate HMAS Melbourne before she was posted ashore prior to taking command of Success in December 2012.
Born in Maitland NSW she was executive officer on Melbourne during a deployment to the Gulf under Operation Catalyst and she also served on board HMAS Sydney during a Middle East deployment.
In 2010 she was a finalist in the community and government category of the ACT division of the Telstra Business Woman awards.
As her 30-year-old, 18,000-tonne support ship steamed deeper into the southern Indian Ocean at her maximum speed of up to 20 knots Captain Norris said the crew were well aware of the importance of the operation.
“They have all seen the pictures on the news.”
Their mission — to find and retrieve a 24-metre-long piece of flotsam that could solve the greatest aviation mystery of modern times.
The ship was making good headway this morning in sea state two but under overcast skies with a temperature of 15 degrees.
“It is getting colder every day,” she said.
When she arrives in the search area lookouts will be posted all around the upper decks with each person responsible for a small arc of sea. They will be looking for any debris.
HMAS Success is one of the oldest ships in the Royal Australian Navy and her motto is “Strive to Win”.
Fresh satellite images will be beamed into the ship’s operations room as Captain Norris readies her crew for one of the most important operations ever conducted by the replenishment ship.
Any sightings of debris by the search aircraft will be immediately relayed to the ship so she can alter course in a bid to find and retrieve whatever is floating just under the surface at the extreme edge of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-ER aircraft’s maximum range.
The ship has a large deck area and a crane that could be used to hoist the large piece and several smaller pieces of debris from the sea.
Once the flotsam is found it will be quickly apparent whether or not it is part of an airliner or some other form of debris. Images of the flotsam will be sent immediately to AMSA and Defence headquarters.
The 157-metre-long HMAS Success was built at the Cockatoo Island dockyard in Sydney in 1984 and is the largest ship ever built in Australia for the Navy.
Her primary function is to replenish other ships underway at sea with fuel and stores.
HMAS Success has not been without controversy and she was embroiled in the 2009 “sex ship of shame” scandal when members of the crew were exposed as sexual predators and bullies and for drug and alcohol abuse.
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